The University of Cambridge has announced that it will soon start trials of a potential new vaccine against all coronavirus including the latest Covid-19 that spill over from animals to humans.
As per the announcement made by the the University of Cambridge on Wednesday, the new vaccine candidate, DIOS-CoVAX2 uses banks of genetic sequences of all known coronaviruses, including those from bats, believed to be the natural hosts of many relatives of human coronaviruses.
After going through the all stages of clinical trials, this vaccine can be delivered pain-free . This vaccine will be delivered through a spring-powered jet injection that will not require a needle.
“Our approach involves 3D computer modelling of the SARS-CoV-2 [Covid-19] virus” structure. It uses information on the virus itself as well as its relatives – SARS, MERS and other coronaviruses carried by animals that threaten to ‘spill-over” to humans again to cause future human epidemics,” said Professor Jonathan Heeney, head of the Laboratory of Viral Zoonotics at the University of Cambridge, and founder of DIOSynVax – a Cambridge spin-out company.
“We’re looking for chinks in its armour, crucial pieces of the virus that we can use to construct the vaccine to direct the immune response in the right direction. Ultimately we aim to make a vaccine that will not only protect from SARS-CoV-2, but also other related coronaviruses that may spill over from animals to humans,” he said.
Earlier, the UK government announced to provide 1.9 million pounds ($2.5 million) fund to the university to develop a DNA-based vaccine shot to protect against multiple coronavirus.
According to the WHO, more than 30 covid vaccines are in clinical trials. Interestingly, at least 140 more covid vaccines are at the preclinical stage.
University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is being developed with AstraZeneca Plc, and Moderna Inc is one of the frontrunners vaccine against the Covid.
The Cambridge’s vaccine will be different from the rest as it expected to avoid any adverse hyper-inflammatory immune reactions. The team hopes to develop such vaccine with the help of computer-generated antigen structures that train the immune system to target key parts of the virus and produce the appropriate antiviral response.
These immune responses include neutralising antibodies, which block virus infection, and T-cells, which remove virus-infected cells.
The field of DNA vaccination is developing rapidly. Vaccines currently being developed use not only DNA, but also include adjuncts that assist DNA to enter cells, target it towards specific cells, or that may act as adjuvants in stimulating or directing the immune response.
Coronavirus Families
Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that causes various symtomps, severity of which differ from one another. Some coronaviruses cause only mild symptoms. Other virus belonging this family cause severe o mild symptoms in the upper-respiratory tract.
- There are hundreds of coronaviruses, most of which circulate among such animals as pigs, camels, bats and cats.
- Four of the seven known coronaviruses cause only mild to moderate disease.
- Three can cause more serious, even fatal, disease.
- SARS coronavirus (SARS-CoV) caused severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). It appeared in 2002, and disappeared by 2004.
- Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) is caused by the MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
- It still causes localised infection outbreaks. It was first identified in 2012.
- SARS-CoV-2. is the third novel coronavirus to emerge in this century. It causes Covid-19 disease.